


on the day of another dream

by Suicix



Category: GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Future, Ambiguous Relationships, Developing Relationship, First Meetings, Fluff, Introspection, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Trains, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 20:25:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13302525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suicix/pseuds/Suicix
Summary: You can take a train all the way across the Pacific Ocean, all the way to America. It only runs every few days, but when it does, Youngjae finds himself staring at the empty carriages before it departs as he waits for his own train, not wanting what he feels to be wistfulness.Not a lot of people seem to want to take the journey, but Youngjae just might.





	on the day of another dream

**Author's Note:**

> for a while, i've wanted to write something inspired by the combination of two things: 1. the scene in spirited away where the train's going over the water, and 2. the song "on melancholy hill" by gorillaz, which is where the title is from. i couldn't decide what exactly i wanted to write, but when i settled on markjae, everything suddenly fit together.
> 
> also, now that i've written this, it means that i've written all twenty-one different got7 ships! :o

The train glides over the water like it’s made of something other than metal, like it’s a jet of light zooming across the ocean. The sky above is just as blue as the sea below, and they’re both clear, so clear. So calm. It matches Youngjae’s mood.

The carriage, aside from him and Mark, is empty. They sit side by side, their hands almost touching, and every so often, Mark will turn his head and meet Youngjae’s eyes and smile at him, subtle and fond and warm like the gentle rays of the sun. Even more than those things, though, it’s easy, something Youngjae can count on. Like he can count on the sun to rise and set in the morning and at night.

(People, he’s realised, like to compare _him_ to the sun. Like to treat him like a source of light that will just keep on giving, no matter what. A source of light that can always be seen by someone in the world, because even if it’s midnight in Korea, it’s going to be midday elsewhere. It’s too much to handle. Too much to try and live up to. Too much for people to expect of him.)

People, but not Mark. Mark treats him like a person, someone with needs of his own and a regular sleep cycle. Even when Mark makes him smile and calls him _sunshine,_ he understands that the sun goes down, that night time exists. That Youngjae isn’t one thing always. That Youngjae is in fact many things, no matter what someone else wants to see.

Youngjae hopes that in return, Mark knows that Youngjae does his best to understand him, too. That he always has, ever since that very first train ride.

 

 

This is a normal day for Youngjae: up, dressed, train, work, train, home. He tries to fit in different things when he can, tries to live more of a life than just that, tries to explore. It’s easier than it’s ever been, easier than it was before the world’s surface became a sprawling network of railroad connecting everyone across the seas. That’s what the history books say, anyway. Youngjae’s never known a world without it.

The trains aren’t so bad. They’re very efficient, and the journeys give him time to think. He likes that, for the most part. He likes that he can be everywhere and nowhere, just him and his thoughts in this otherwise empty space.

It’s just as well that the trains usually run on time with few delays. If they didn’t, it might get a bit too empty. A bit too lonely. Might force Youngjae to think too much. Still, being alone with his thoughts on an ocean train is better than being on the subway somewhere deep in the bowels of a city, where being surrounded by people somehow makes him feel even more alone. It’s a blessing, he knows, to have this as his commute, to get to travel out in the open instead of underground where you’re likely to have to stand up and get squashed in the crush of other passengers.

That’s the cities, though: internal, domestic travel. Nowadays, so much more than that is possible. Nowadays, you can go anywhere. You can take a train all the way across the Pacific Ocean, all the way to America. It only runs every few days, but when it does, Youngjae finds himself staring at the empty carriages before it departs as he waits for his own train, not wanting what he feels to be wistfulness.

Not a lot of people seem to want to take the journey, but Youngjae just might.

 

 

That’s not where he and Mark are going today. No, that would take too long: would be a day’s worth of travel in itself (and they _know,_ because they’ve done it, because it’s where they met), and this weekend, they don’t have that kind of time. Today is a simple daytrip, and they’ll be on their way home by the time evening comes.

Youngjae marvels at that, sometimes: at the fact that they call the same place home. That Mark calls it home because of him, that he could be that for someone. That it only happened because he took a chance and made the decision to take the trip however many thousands of miles over the sea.

 

 

(Youngjae doesn’t regret it. He doesn’t regret the time taken off work, the cost of the ticket, the day-long journey. All of that’s such a small price to pay for what he’s getting in return.

A kiss on the back of his knuckles before he’s pulled into the Los Angeles nightlife, before he lets himself be swallowed up by it. A kiss on his shoulder while he’s ankle deep in the sea, everything around him golden and blue and beautiful. A kiss on his mouth when he repeats back new English words he’s learned, a new language and new feelings, everything so new-new-new. Youngjae never wants to stop discovering.

No regrets. That’s how he lives out here.)

 

 

There’s someone else on the train.

Someone else in this very carriage, someone else who’s looking to go all the way across the ocean. Youngjae’s surprised: whenever he sees it pulling away from the platform, it’s usually empty. There’s a part of him that’s kind of relieved – spending a night alone on the ocean is a little daunting – but now there’ll be an audience when he inevitably starts singing under his breath.

A man, sitting down not-quite-opposite Youngjae. He looks up at the sound of someone joining him, and his eyes widen a little at the sight of Youngjae in front of him. Youngjae smiles – wide, the only way he knows how – and gets a small smile back at him in return. Maybe, at some point during the ride, they’ll talk.

Youngjae enjoys his own company just fine – wouldn’t be on this day-long train ride to a foreign country with a language he can’t speak if he didn’t – but there’s something about this stranger that makes him want to interact. He can’t quite put a finger on what it is. Something about that smile, perhaps: the fact that even though it’s different from his, it still feels just as real.

 

 

(Mark is American and Chinese and three years older than Youngjae. He’s on his way home, though he doesn’t know if he’ll stay there, and Youngjae could tell that he’s a foreigner the moment he started talking. When they reach their destination, though, Youngjae supposes that he’ll be the foreign one.

He tells Mark that he can speak some English, though not much, and Mark just gives an unreadable smile and says, _I’ll teach you._ Like they’re not going to part ways when they’re back on land again.

Youngjae doesn’t quite know what to make of that.)

 

 

Mark keeps his word. Youngjae learns new words and new phrases and whole new things to feel. Maybe the last of those isn’t intentional on Mark’s part, but that’s what Youngjae’s taking from this. He doesn’t know why Mark’s still with him – doesn’t he have his own plans? – but he can’t bring himself to care when he’s enjoying the company this much.

Mark’s like Youngjae’s own personal tour guide: showing him around the city in a way he can understand, recommending food and pointing out details that Youngjae might otherwise have missed. Sometimes, it’s obvious when there are memories attached to places – when there are things Mark could be saying that he isn’t. Personal things, stories of his past here. Youngjae doesn’t press him. Mark doesn’t have to open up if he doesn’t want to, and if he ever does, there’s time enough for that yet.

They have a beach day – Youngjae watching from a brightly coloured towel on the sand as Mark surfs. Sometimes, Mark’s successful, and Youngjae looks on in awe as Mark takes on the waves. Other times, and Mark falls off into the water, but when he comes back to Youngjae, he’s smiling, _laughing,_ his grin as blinding as the sun in the sky behind him. Youngjae finds himself squinting, wishing he had sunglasses, but somehow, it’s a relief.

He relaxes, knowing that someone else can act as the sun for once. Knowing that it’s up there, beating down on him, and he doesn’t have to do anything to keep it going. For now, Mark’s taken that burden from him.

 

 

“Don’t you think,” Youngjae says when they’re almost halfway across the Pacific Ocean, so very nearly back in yesterday, “that it’s kind of like this train’s been taking us back in time?”

Since the start of the journey, he and Mark have talked. They introduced themselves, engaged in some friendly small talk, and it’s now, when they’re inching closer and closer to the International Date Line, that things are starting to get deeper. They’ve been losing hours as they’ve travelled east, and now, even though they’ve reached the point where they’ve gained a whole extra day, they’re just going to keep on dropping them. Going to go straight from the world’s most eastern point to its most western one. (Except, not really. There are no ends, no corners, no edges. No extremes. The world keeps going, keeps giving, keeps turning. Taking them back in time only to take them forward again.)

Mark furrows his brow in thought, like he’s contemplating what Youngjae just said.

“I guess so,” he says after a moment, and he smiles that smile again – the one that served as a silent greeting before the train set off. As Youngjae smiles back, pleased that what he said makes at least _some_ kind of sense to someone else, he can’t help but notice something different in Mark’s smile. Something more open, more relaxed. Mark letting his guard down a little more – whatever that might mean.

 

 

Mark is a contradiction: simultaneously one of the quietest and loudest people Youngjae thinks he’s ever met. Youngjae likes the calm and he likes the feeling of surprise when Mark suddenly laughs, and most of all he likes the reassurance that there’s no need to adhere to being just one singular quality. It’s what he’s spent his whole life trying to tell himself. One person is never one thing. One person is always many things: a whole range of volumes from one to a hundred, a collage of traits that sometimes neatly align and sometimes messily overlap. Mark is that. Just like Youngjae, and just like everyone else, but that doesn’t mean that Mark can’t be special.

He’s certainly becoming more special to Youngjae, his importance increasing with every day (every hour, minute, second) that goes by. Reciprocation and relief come when Mark kisses him (his hand, his shoulder, his mouth), and Youngjae’s alive under his touch, under the soft-steady-sure press of his lips. It’s then – now that Youngjae’s familiar with Mark’s mouth, his taste – that he realises he doesn’t want this to end. That he wants this to carry on elsewhere, provided that Mark’s willing.

He tries to picture a farewell scene: hugging Mark goodbye at the international train station as he tells Mark _thanks a lot,_ one of his favourite English phrases he’s picked up. Mark would hug back, arms tight around him. A bittersweet embrace. Hopefully one that will only exist in Youngjae’s mind, never springing forward into reality, into real touch and real words and real sadness.

Youngjae knows he’d do whatever it takes to stop it.

 

 

It’s their last day. Youngjae’s last day, that’s for sure, but it might not be Mark’s. Is it selfish of Youngjae to want Mark to come back to Korea with him? He said it himself, that he didn’t know if he’d stay, so surely it _can’t_ be selfish. It shouldn’t be.

It’s well into the night when the subject comes up. The sea’s glittering in front of them, and the city’s all lit up at their backs. Somewhere in the distance, Youngjae can see what looks like a train on the water. That’ll be him tomorrow, though he hopes it’ll be them both.

The two of them are quiet. There’s only the sound of the waves and the muted noise of the city until Mark speaks.

“I think I want to go back to Korea,” he says, the words soft in Youngjae’s ear like a secret. “Unless…”

“Unless?”

“Unless there’s more you want to see here. We could go north, or east, or both. Whatever.”

Youngjae considers. He likes the sound of the word _we,_ but he thinks he’d like to use it for himself, too.

“We could always come back and see more another time,” he says.

“Yeah.” Mark’s smile is so genuine, almost giddy, like he’s on the edge of not quite believing what he’s hearing. “We could.”

 

 

Youngjae thinks about it, sometimes: the two of them going back to America, visiting a different side of the country, seeing new sights, Mark teaching him even more English. He’d like to go to New York, he thinks, and when he tells Mark, Mark nods like it’s a good idea.

They could go in a week, could go in a month, in a year. In five years or ten years. Whenever. It feels like they have all the time in the world, endless days and nights, endless cycles of the sun and moon. They’ll keep travelling, keep going back in time and stealing hours, and they really will have all that time at their disposal.

Seconds on minutes on hours on days. Youngjae can’t wait to spend all of that with Mark.

 

 

(They make it back to Korea as the sun sets. The sky is golden, and this is the past, the present, their future-future-future.)

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading, everyone - you can also find me on tumblr @ vibetechs and on twitter @gotsevenses !!


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